Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

F R A N C I N E R I V E R S
her hand over his, trapping it there against her cheek, but only briefly. Her
skin was so soft, her hair silky. His thumb slid down, feeling the wild pulse
in her throat. “Miriam. Oh, Miriam, what are you trying to do to me?”
“Nothing you haven’t wanted for a long time. Admit it.” Her arms slid
around his neck, and she kissed him. When she raised her mouth from his,
he couldn’t have stopped for the world. He framed her face with his hands
and kissed her, gently at first, then with all the pent-up love he’d been feeling
for months.
He kissed her as the starving man he was. Her surrender to him made
his senses swim. She was firm and smooth and warm, and she tasted like
heaven. “I love you,” he whispered, almost afraid to say the words aloud.
“I’ve been going mad. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get away from you.”
“I know,” she said, trembling, her hands in his hair. She started to weep.
“I love you so much. Oh, Paul, I do.…”
He drew back, looking down into her face, noting how her cheeks were
flushed, her eyes filled with her love for him, and he thought his heart
would burst. She was his. She belonged to him! He could scarcely take it in.
She saw the look burning in his eyes and reached up to touch his cheek,
her face softening with tenderness. “I want us to begin right. Marry me first,
Paul. Be my husband. I want to share everything with you without any
shadows over us. Without any regrets. If you make love to me now, you’ll be
ashamed tomorrow. You know you will. You won’t be able to face my father
and mother. You’ll think you took advantage of me.” She smiled tremulously.
“Even though it’s the other way around.”
“I thought I could leave you,” he said, knowing he would have carried
her with him the rest of his life, a torment he would never escape. “I guess
we’ll have to ride up to Sacramento and see if we can find a preacher.”
“No, we don’t.”
He looked at her, surprised.
Blushing, she smiled shyly, more the Miriam he knew and not the bold
young woman who had stolen into his cabin at night.
“Papa said he would marry us himself. He was going through the trunk
when I left, looking for his Book of Common Prayer. He was rather in a hurry,
I think.”
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